Trainer Bob Baffert's horses are dying at unusual rate

ARCADIA  Bob Baffert was in his regular place at Santa Anita Thursday morning, watching his horses exercise, work or gallop as he stood along the racetrack.

“I’ll talk about Governor Charlie, but that’s it,” Baffert said of his colt that won the Sunland Derby to qualify for the Kentucky Derby and worked four furlongs Thursday.

Asked about the reports on the spike in sudden horse deaths in his barn, Baffert, a Hall of Fame trainer who has won three Kentucky Derbies, said he had no comment.

Reports indicate Baffert has lost seven horses to sudden death – heart attacks or aneurysms -- in the last 16 months. The numbers reveal that Baffert trained four of the 19 horses that died in California of sudden death in 2011-12 and trained three of the 17 horses that have died under similar circumstances thus far in 2012-13, with the fiscal year ending June 30.

Meantime, the California Horse Racing Board’s Bo Derek and the state’s equine medical director, Dr. Rick Arthur, addressed the issue at the CHRB’s meeting Thursday at Santa Anita. They both said the 17 racehorses that have died thus far of sudden death in this fiscal year that ends June 30 are about normal. The state averages about 20 sudden death cases in thoroughbreds a year, Derek said.

“The number of sudden deaths has not spiked in California,” Derek said, and then she repeated it.

Arthur said the state, known for its comprehensive necropsy program at UC Davis for racing thoroughbreds, has completed necropsies on all the horses that have died in California thus far this year and in previous years. He said the investigations are over. He said he and others on the CHRB did not single Baffert out at Wednesday’s Medication and Track Safety Committee meeting when the subject of sudden death in horses was addressed.

Arthur added that there “absolutely” was no spike in sudden deaths for racehorses in California.

“It is unusual for a trainer to have multiple sudden deaths in a short period of time, yes,” Arthur said, without naming Baffert. “We followed the necropsies very carefully and there’s very little that misses our attention. The work has been done.”

Dr. Francisco Uzal of the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System in San Bernardino told the CHRB’s committee meeting Wednesday that his lab has been unable to find the cause of the sudden deaths in any of the horses. He said the necropsies mostly showed signs of acute respiratory distress.

“We have done extensive toxicological studies,” Uzal said at the meeting. “We have done all sorts of things – pathology and histology. We don’t know what’s going on.”

The reports were a hot topic at Clocker’s Corner at Santa Anita early Thursday.

“I think it’s a lot of hogwash,” said Madeline Auerbach, a member of the Jockey Club, horse owner and founder of CARMA, an organization that raises money to place and care for retired racehorses. “I think it’s a lot of jealousy. It was started by people with small minds and a lot of jealousy. I think the people in the Baffert barn are more concerned about it because they want to know what caused these deaths more than anyone.